Kevin Rose
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| Born: | 1977-02-21 Las Vegas, Nevada |
|---|---|
| Occupation: | Software Architect, Digg.com
<tr><th style="text-align: right;">Net worth:</th><td>$60M (Estimated)</td></tr><tr><th style="text-align: right;">Spouse:</th><td>Partnered (?)</td></tr><tr><th style="text-align: right;">Website:</th><td>http://kevinrose.com</td></tr> |
Robert Kevin Rose (born February 21, 1977 in Las Vegas, Nevada, USA; better known as Kevin Rose, also known as "the dark tipper" for giving hacking advice, etc) is best known for founding the social-bookmarking site Digg and as former co-host of the TechTV show The Screen Savers (later Attack of the Show! on G4) until his departure from the network in May 2005. He attended UNLV for computer science, but dropped out to pursue the 90's tech boom. After dropping out, he worked for the Department of Energy, where he was a technology advisor and held a Level L security clearance. He later moved to San Francisco, California, and worked for several dot-com startups through CMGI.
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[edit] Television
After the dot-com bubble burst, Rose was hired as a technical production assistant for The Screen Savers. He eventually began appearing on the show, most notably in "Dark Tip" segments, where he provided information on little-known or developing computing activities to the show's wide range audience. He sometimes filled in for the regular show hosts, and stepped in as host after Leo Laporte left TechTV.
On March 25, 2004, G4 announced a merger with TechTV, creating a new entity called G4techTV. Rose was one of only six TechTV personalities, including Adam Sessler, Morgan Webb, Sarah Lane, Chi-Lan Lieu, and Brendan Moran, to survive the massive layoffs resulting from the merger.
On May 22, 2005, Rose announced on his blog that he had been released from his contract with G4. He left the network to create Revision3 Corporation and focus full-time on producing podcasts. May 27 marked his last day of work at G4 and final appearance on Attack of the Show!.
[edit] Internet
Rose has become a well known Internet celebrity. On November 1, 2004, Rose formed Digg, a technology news website that combines social bookmarking, blogging, RSS, and non-hierarchical editorial control. Digg is now ranked among the top 100 websites worldwide (according to alexa.com, ranked average of 100 for hits per day). In October 2005, Digg.com received $2.8 million in venture capital from major investors, including Omidyar Network, the outfit led by eBay co-founder Pierre Omidyar, Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, and Greylock partners.
[edit] Podcasting
July 24, 2003 marked the entry of Rose into the genre now known as videocasting, with the release of the first episode of thebroken. The show, co-hosted by Dan Huard (also from The Screen Savers) features questionable activities, such as password cracking and social engineering. To date, there are four full episodes available on the Revision3 website, the most recent was released on September 27, 2006 one day after the re-launch of the Revision3 network, and over two years after the last episode of thebroken.
Rose's second videocast venture, called Systm, was released the same week of his departure from G4. Also co-hosted by Huard, the show closely resembles older technology-oriented formats of The Screen Savers, but gives Rose all the time he needs to fully explain how to complete complex projects.
Since November 1, 2005, he and former The Screen Savers co-host Alex Albrecht are now releasing a weekly podcast, Diggnation, summarizing the top stories submitted by Digg users. Through his show he has also become known as a beer lover, as he and Albrecht almost always open the show describing which beer they're currently drinking.
Rose has frequently appeared on the weekly podcast This Week in Tech with several other former contributors to TechTV's The Screen Savers.
[edit] BusinessWeek
Rose was featured on the cover of BusinessWeek for the August 14, 2006 issue. The cover text was "How this kid made $60 million in 18 Months". The story mainly covered his success as a young entrepreneur and explained how he risked it all to make Digg.com a reality. It also says he lost his girlfriend during the launch and that money meant for a house deposit payment was instead used to fund his idea.[1]
On the August 7, 2006 edition of This Week in Tech Rose stated that he was not told that his picture would be for sure on the cover, and had asked that they not use the two-thumbs-up pose. John C. Dvorak stated that the cover and the article were insulting because of the unprofessional way they portrayed Kevin. Dvorak also noted that BusinessWeek characterized Kevin as "Tom Cruise's doughier little brother" and compared Diggnation to Wayne's World. Kevin explained that Digg is still not a profitable website as of now, though it will be in the future, once Digg's ad campaign is run by Federated Media. In fact, Digg is at a loss as of 2006. The '$60 million' stated by BusinessWeek was obtained by assessing the value of Digg.com and taking Kevin's 30-40% ownership.
Kevin Pereira, host of G4's Attack of the Show, mentions the former co-host's recent magazine appearance during the segment "Olivia's Rack". Pereira congratulates Rose for being on the cover of BW. The episode aired August 9, 2006.
[edit] Revision3
After the merger between G4 and TechTV, Rose saw in the removal of most technology-oriented content from the new network as motivation to start Revision3 Corporation, an IPTV network, of which he shares ownership with some friends and ex-coworkers. The company was formed in Los Angeles, California by Jay Adelson, Kevin Rose, Dan Huard, Keith Harrison and Ron Gorodetzky in April 2005. The network has since been joined by David Prager, Alex Albrecht, Heather Stewart, Martin Sargent, and Jessica Corbin among others. Revision3 officially relauched on September 27, 2006 with the reemergence of thebroken and the revealing of four new shows.
